But to a growing child, even in my neighborhoods, I found confusing the fact that families around me were different from my own, and that these differences had to do with work status and educational background of the father, family income, religious and political affiliations, and other subtle social variations. An obvious difference was that some parents were much stricter than mine, seemingly tied to some principles of family life not like those of my parents. Some families seemed to be more popular, and others seemed to be shunned as deviant in some way.
William H. Whyte, in the 1956 book The Organization Man, provides seven chapters on an in-depth sociological study of early fifties suburbs.
Whyte’s chapter titles are telling: Part Seven, The New Suburbia: Organization Man at Home; 21 The Transients; 22 The New Roots; 23 Classlessness in Suburbia; 24 Inconspicuous Consumption; 25 The Web of Friendship; 26 The Outgoing Life; 27 The Church in Suburbia; and 28 The Organization Children.
Although Whyte rarely uses the term bureaucracy, his definition of the organization man generally is mid-level workers who not only work at but “belong to” bureaucracies, whether corporate or government. “They are the ones of our middle class who have left home, spiritually as well as physically, to take the vows of organization life, and it is they who are the mind and soul of our great self-perpetuating institutions"
The suburbs in the 1950s, according to Whyte, were the organization man’s dormitories, where the communal life was thought of as like the frontier, or the early colonial settlements, or “a womb with a view,” “a sorority house with kids,” a lay version of Army post life,” or a “Russia, only with money.” “The organization men make the suburbs in their own image. They tend to dominate the tone of the community by organizing the committees, running the schools, selecting the ministers, fighting the developments, making speeches and setting styles.”
Another aspect of the suburbs is the rootlessness of its members. Residents, though homogenous in backgrounds, come from everywhere (though in my neighborhoods, mostly from the South). The organization men in particular are rootless, as the organization requires them to be mobile and transient.
Just as the organization requires a certain classlessness of its workers, in the suburbs, there is a leveling of class. Young couples, away from family homes and family influences, can make their own new image of class affiliation. For example, a young couple, like my parents, might choose a church a step up from their parents—Presbyterian rather than Methodist. “So with personal tastes: wives are particularly quick to pick up the cues from the college-educated girls on the street, and their clothes, be they slacks or cardigans and pearls, begin to show it. Home furnishings are another symbol of emancipation.”
In my neighborhoods, on any street all houses were 90 percent the same, but with small differences, selected by the new home buyer, such as porch style, kitchen colors, den paneling, just like the choices you would have to select your new car or your 401k plan—to express your unique personality. Some neighborhoods (mostly those built in the forties), were all frame with wood siding. My home, built in about 1952 and with 975 sq. ft. was combination brick veneer and wood siding with one bath and a one-car garage. Steve, up on San Lorenzo, lived in a house entirely brick veneer, with larger sq. footage and likely with two baths, while Kenny’s family moved up to a two-story brick. Home designs had names such as ranch house, colonial, and cape cod.
When all the houses on a street looked alike, small discrepancies were easily noted: a garage conversion was frowned on, as was too dense vegetation. Men kept the yards mowed, but it was best to take the middle way with lawn care—not too lazy and sloppy but also not in a big show-off way. On occasion, we had real social deviants in our neighborhood, like the beatniks on Sylvia Dr. who painted their house bright orange and painted a dragon with flaming mouth on the front siding.
Inside, we were quick to note new additions outside the norm—a portable dishwasher, a first and second window air conditioner, at Kenny’s house, a console stereo player. According to Whyte:
"It is the group that determines when a luxury becomes a necessity. This takes place when there comes together a sort of critical mass. In the early stages, when only a few of the housewives in a block have, say, an automatic dryer, the word-of-mouth of its indispensability is restricted. But, then, as time goes on and the adjacent housewives follow suit, in a mounting ratio others are exposed to more and more talk about its benefits. Soon the nonpossession of the item becomes an almost antisocial act—an unspoken aspersion of the others’ judgment or taste. At this point only the most resolute individualists can hold out, for just as the group punishes its members for buying prematurely, so it punishes those for not buying."
Whyte’s most interesting observations have to do with his analysis of social patterns of friendship in the neighborhoods. For a year or so, his research team studied social interactions in a particular neighborhood, recording group events.
In our neighborhoods, for instance, what houses were sites for backyard parties, bridge games, scout meetings, baby showers, etc? What houses did we want to go to on Halloween and which did we stay away from?
More from Whyte in a future blog.
